Visualizing wind patterns with Wind Map

You can finally stop licking your finger and sticking it in the air to find out which way the wind is blowing thanks to the mesmerizing Wind Map created by Google computer scientists Fernanda Viégas and Martin Wattenberg and based on hourly updates from the National Weather Service.

For right now, the map is only of the United States until the team can find a dependable source for international data on winds. Perhaps that will depend on whether or not political winds are blowing in the right direction, or at the very least kicking up some cash for forecasting services.

Incidentally, more people were wondering if you’d washed your hands recently doing that trick than where you learned your mighty weather prediction skills.